Debra Van Tuinen at Arts Walk

By Alec Clayton

Note: When parts of this article were published in two different publications, OLY ARTS and the Weekly Volcano, I decided publishing it on my blog was duplicitous, but on second thought, I think it needs to be published as a single article. 

Debra Van Tuinen’s latest paintings in oil over acrylic are the culmination and apotheosis of a long and ongoing career in art. They are large (many up to 88 inches in height), bold and brimming with color. These larger paintings are from her latest series. Each painting in the series — and you can expect to see as many as 20 to 25 of them in this spring Arts Walk, plus many of her smaller works in encaustic.

Typically the larger paintings are two colors only, swathes of a bright color such as white, yellow, red or blue, over a field of a darker color. Free flowing like waves washed upon a beach, the bright colors are applied in wide and rhythmical strokes that vary from transparent washes to places where the paint builds up into heavy, opaque ridges.

These paintings are abstract but inspired by nature. In addition to these, Van Tuinen will be showing a large selection of her latest works in encaustic on wood panels. Local art lovers know she has been famous for her encaustic paintings for decades. These latest ones are abstractions based on waterfalls and other elements of nature and employ sumi painting techniques and dark passages reminiscent of Franz Kline’s black and white paintings but with complex layering and transparencies.

Van Tuinen was already well known in the Olympia area when I moved here in 1988, and she’s been working tirelessly ever since. Many locals will remember her studio down by the Farmers Market and the large encaustic painting that for years hung over the reception desk at the Olympian office when it was on 4^th Avenue. She has also shown her work in galleries all over the states. When I visited her studio to see her latest works, she was getting ready to send paintings to Atlanta. Her work is represented by galleries in Bellevue; Portland; Bridgehampton, New York; Calgary; Denver; Los Angeles; Vancouver, BC; and London, England. This is big time, folks. She's the real deal. Just now as I am finishing this article I got an email from Van Tuinen saying, “My gallery in LA just called yesterday and they love the new work.  He is presenting 14 of the large paintings to his client and collector. I am feeling really good about this because I am painting what I love and worked toward for so many years.”

She will be showing at Waterstreet Café during Arts Walk. Also showing at Waterstreet will be sculpture by Bob Coble.

Arts walk is Friday, April 27, 5-10 p.m. and Saturday, April 28, noon-8 p.m. Waterstreet Café is at 610 Water Street, Olympia.

Review: The Pillowman

By Alec Clayton

Published in The News Tribune, April 27, 2018

from left: Andrew Fry, Jacob Tice and Christian Carvajal, all photos by Dennis K Photographer

“The Pillowman” at Tacoma Little Theatre is a dark and brutal comedy not suitable for children or for the squeamish, but brilliantly written by Martin McDonough and staged by director Blake York.

This is the first play set outside of Ireland by celebrated Irish playwright McDonough, author of the Academy Award-winning “Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri” and the plays “The Beauty Queen of Leenane” and “The Lieutenant of Inishmore.”

Jacob Tice and Christian Carvajal

Sean Neely and Jacob Tice

The setting for the play is a bleak police interrogation room in an unnamed totalitarian state (there are hints, including some character names, that it is somewhere in Eastern Europe). Katurian (Jacob Tice) and his brother Michael (Sean Neely) are brought in for questioning about a string of gruesome murders of young children. The cops who question them in a gallows-humor spin on a good cop-bad cop routine are Tupolski (Andrew Fry) and Ariel (Christian Carvajal). The reason the brothers are suspected is many of Katurian’s short stories resemble the murders. When Katurian finds out, Michael, whom Katurian describes as childlike and "slow to get things,” is there and being kept by the police in another offstage interrogation room, Katurian is infuriated.

All the four major characters are complex and multi-layered men, and each, with the possible exception of Michael, turns out to be quite different than they at first seem. The “good cop” is sly, manipulative and cold-hearted beneath his kindly exterior, and the “bad” cop, who is anxious to torture and brutalize both Katurian and Michael, turns out to have a heart after all.

McDonough’s writing is intricately and beautifully constructed and full of surprises. The story is both bleak and funny, with hints of Tom Stoppard and Franz Kafka, and even Grimm’s fairy tales, which are alluded to by Katurian. The jailhouse setting reminds me of Theater Artists Olympia’s production of George Orwell’s “1984.”

Tice is proving to be one of the South Sound’s most versatile actors, totally different in every role he takes on. As Katurian he appears to be sponge-like, adapting his personality to suit the situation from moment to moment, and achingly vulnerable throughout. His character is never off stage.

Carvajal plays Ariel as an almost insane brute, bursting with constrained nervous energy. It’s worth the price of admission just to watch the way he smokes a cigarette (no actual smoke).

Fry plays Tupolski as one of the kindest and most normal of a group of bizarre characters, but audiences can sense his underlying sadistic streak.

Seattle actor Neely, new to Tacoma stages, is simply stupendous as Michael. His physical quirks and hesitant manner of speech perfectly express the psyche of an abused person. Neely and Carvajal each auditioned only for their particular roles and no other, and each said Michael and Ariel, respectively, were dream roles.  

There are four other actors who do not have speaking roles, who are excellent but about whom I shall not say anything because the scenes they are in should come as a surprise, and I do not want to spoil it. It’s a great bit of staging by Blake.

“The Pillowman” is not recommended for children younger than 13. There is as much profanity as in a Tarantino movie, and there is violence, blood and a gunshot. Yet despite all the gore, there is much humor and a heartfelt look into the complexities of human beings.

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, through May 6

WHERE: Tacoma Little Theatre, 210 North I Street, Tacoma

TICKETS: $20-$24, pay what you can May 3

INFORMATION: (253) 272-2281, www.tacomalittletheatre.com

Olympia Arts Walk 2018

"These Three Things" metal sculpture by Lisa Geertsen, courtesy of the artist.

Lisa Geertsen A Show of Hearts

by Alec Clayton

Published in the Weekly Volcano, April 26, 2018

Seattle metal sculptor and blacksmith Lisa Geertsen will be the featured artist at The Washington Center for the Performing Arts during Olympia’s Arts Walk Friday and Saturday, April 27-28. Her show will continue until June 22.

She will be showing about 40 pieces from the “Show of Hearts.” The works are sculpted metal hearts — not Valentine’s hearts but the organs that beat in the chests of humans and other animals. Many of them are wall-hanging pieces, and others are free standing. They range in size from one to five feet in height. There will even be one as small as three inches that she will be wearing as a pendant around her neck at the opening.

She began the series in 2005 and hopes to create 100 pieces before moving on to something else. She says she’s about halfway to reaching that goal, and works from the beginning to current pieces will be included in the show.

“I began this project with ‘Release Your Heavy Heart’, an interactive sculpture I made for a fundraising event,” Geertsen says. “This spawned the idea of the heart series. These works stem from words ... song lyrics, common phrases, books, poems, names of plants, things I hear people say ... I begin with the words and interpret them into metal. This is my challenge and I love it.”

Geertsen’s work ranges from architectural fabrication to site-specific sculptures. She is the owner of Firelight Forge. She is a blacksmithing instructor and Metal and Stone Sculpture Studio Manager at Pratt Fine Arts Center since 2007.

Outside the Center, Student Orchestra of Greater Olympia’s “Pet the Instruments” will perform, while a Hand’s On Children’s Museum activity will take place in the Black Box.

Olympia’s spring Arts Walk is two days of art, entertainment and a wide mixture of activities in hundreds of venues all over downtown.

Saturday will be the dedication of the Music Out Loud Mosaic, mosaics embedded in the sidewalks honoring local music legends Vern Eke (design by Jennifer Kuhns), Steve Munger (design by Nathan Barnes) and Bert Wilson (design by Michele A. Burton). There will be a walking tour of the mosaics beginning at noon Saturday at the corner of 4th Avenue and Chestnut.

Possibly the largest and most exciting art exhibit during Arts Walk will be new paintings by Debra van Tuinen, truly one of Olympia’s best loved visual artists. She will be showing 50 or more recent paintings, many as large as 88 inches in height. They are bright and vibrant abstract paintings based on natural phenomena such as waterfalls and waves washed upon a beach, depicted in free flowing areas of nuanced colors applied in wide and rhythmical strokes that vary from transparent washes to places where the paint builds up into heavy, opaque edges. These paintings will be shown along with works by Bab Coble at Waterstreet Café.

In Sylvester Park there will be a free speech area. Smooth jazz guitarist Vince Brown will perform at The Mouse Trap and other venues. Artist Faith Hagenhofen will show work at Pete Lea’s Automotive. Chris Maynard will show his intricate feather creations at Capitol Florist. China Star’s art will be at the Brotherhood Lounge. Mia Shulte’s beautiful abstract paintings will be on display at Fosbre Academy, and all this is but a tiny fraction of what’s on tap for Arts Walk.

The famous Element of Spirit Luminary Procession will be Friday night at 9:30 and the Procession of the Species Saturday at 4:40 p.m. Complete details and a map to all activities and exhibitions are available at http://olympiawa.gov/city-services/parks/artswalk.aspx.

Arts Walk, April 28-29, various venues downtown Olympia

We Sit Together the Mountain and Me

Anne Appleby  at Tacoma Art Museum

By Alec Clayton

published in the Weekly Volcano, April 26, 2018

"Moving Trees," single-channel digital pojection, by Anne appleby, courtesy of the artist and Anglim Gilbert Gallery, San Francisco

There are artists with whom art lovers simply cannot connect. They can’t enjoy their work even though they understand and appreciate its importance. Picasso is a prime example. Surely everyone knowledgeable of art appreciates the importance of his work, yet there are many who, despite this appreciation, cannot stand the harsh distortions of some of his images. Mark Rothko is another artist we can admire, but whose paintings are boring to many people — some who do not like Picasso or Rothko or other acknowledged masters might even be ashamed to admit their dislike. I say all this by way of explaining my reaction to Anne Appleby’s art now showing at Tacoma Art Museum. I admire the work, dedication and intelligence manifested in her paintings, but they leave me feeling as blank as her mostly monotone canvases.

Appleby lays down layer after layer of paint — up to 20 layers, I was told — to create a luminescence that mirrors the light of the snow-covered mountains near her home studio in Montana’s Elkhorn Mountains. I can’t imagine any other artist being so close to nature.

“I think my role is to capture beauty. I think so because it's the central doctrine of so many religions — it's the reverence for the creator of the creation. It’s a feeling, like beauty, both inside and out,” Appleby says.

Many of her paintings are executed in multiple panels, each panel a square or rectangle of what appears to be a single, unmodulated color representing trees or mountains during different seasons or times of day. There are subtle modulations in color and texture, however, that can be detected only with extreme attention to detail.

I must confess that I am like the people who might be capable of appreciating certain masterworks even though they might not particularly enjoy them. The appreciation of art might be mostly intellectual, but the enjoyment of art rests on pure gut feelings.

I trust some of my readers — hopefully many — will be able to get the full contemplative and reverential effect of Appleby’s paintings.

“I’m interested in getting people to slow down a little bit, so they can see the world differently by awakening their sensibilities,” Appleby says.

One large gallery at TAM is filled with her paintings, most created within the past year or two. In addition to the paintings, there is a digital projection that runs on a 3-minute, 24-second loop called “Moving Trees.” The screen hangs from the gallery ceiling like a room divider. On it we see trees slowly moving in the wind as snow drifts down. Like some of the paintings, but perhaps even more compelling, this digital image creates the feeling of standing among the trees on the mountain and being engulfed in nature.

I hope readers of this column will take the artist’s advice and “slow down a little bit, so they can see the world differently.”

Anne Appleby, We Sit Together the Mountain and Me, Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., through June 3, $13-$15, third Thursday free 5-8 p.m., Tacoma Art Museum, 1701 Pacific Ave. Tacoma, http://www.tacomaartmuseum.org/

Hart James’s Zen at Allsorts Gallery

by Alec Clayton

Published in the Weekly Volcano, April 19, 2018

“Dog Head Falls.  Dissolving Rock.  Vermont Studio Center,” oil and charcoal on canvas by Hart James, courtesy Allsorts Gallery

Hart James is fairly new to the Olympia art scene. I first saw her work in 2013, at which time she was showing a group of flowery collages that verged on surrealism. Soon after she began showing solid, heavy landscapes perhaps influenced by Cezanne.  landscapes that were solid and somewhat heavy looking in a Cezannesque manner. Tree trunks and limbs were painted as strong angular marks that broke the canvas into flat fields of color, and mountains were slabs of heavy paint.

Over the past year she has been posting pictures on Facebook that indicate her painting has taken giant leaps forward, especially since spending a winter studying at the Vermont Studio School. Now South Sound art lovers get to see some 20 of these new paintings at Allsorts Gallery in Olympia. And they are stunners — vibrant, energetic paintings of mountains, lakes and rivers in a thoroughly modernist manner verging on conventional 1950s Abstract Expressionism. 

James’s latest paintings are in oil and charcoal on canvas, some stretched but unframed and others not on stretchers but tacked directly to the wall. They are gutsy. She attacks the canvas with an odd combination of gusto and finesse. Many of the ones in the front room are referred to in titles written directly on the canvas as “Sketches,” and there is clearly a sketchy quality to them. The paint application is thick in areas with large swaths of paint slathered on, and thin as water in other areas with washes of color that soak into the canvas run in rivulets. This group of paintings are the strongest and liveliest in the show. The paintings on stretched canvas in the other room have a more painterly, less sketchy look. We see more rocks and sky, and clearly defined mountain ranges and trees. Her use of charcoal enlivens the surface with angular and jagged black lines that in many instances look like dry brush or oil stick drawing.

There is a triptych called “Makah Spirits” that harkens back to earlier work. In general, I have a personal objection to diptychs and triptychs because that they appear gimmicky. If the artist wants a 24-inch by 54-inch painting, why not paint it 24-by-54 instead of three 24-by-18 panels? All that does is break the painting into three sections, and the edges between the panels add nothing. In this painting, however, the lines created by the edges add a needed stabilizing element to a painting that without those lines might be too chaotic. 

It is impossible to pick a single favorite painting in this show, but if I were forced to I would choose “December Sketch, Doghead Falls, Vermont Studio Center.” I see it not as a painting but as a drawing in oil and charcoal. The directness and spontaneity of this one is wonderfully uplifting. It looks as if she jotted down the shape of a mountain and a flowing river coming down from it in a few quick strokes, capturing the essence of the scene in one swoop of frantic energy, as if years of hard work and study coalesced in a momentary burst. This painting was done only four months ago. If it and others in the series are indicative of where James is going, she has arrived. She is also currently showing paintings in the gallery at South Puget Sound Community College and at the Department of Ecology.

Allsorts is a pop-up gallery in a private home. Hours of operation are limited.

Zen by Hart James, 5-7 p.m. Fri.-Sat, and during Arts Walk and by appointment, through April 28, artist reception 4-7 p.m. April 22, All Sorts Gallery, 2306 Capitol Way S, Olympia, https://www.facebook.com/Allsorts-Gallery,  323-254-6220

Catch Me If You Can at Tacoma Musical Playhouse

By Alec Clayton

Published in the Weekly Volcano, April 19, 2018

FBI agent Carl Hanratty, center, with the ensemble cast of “Catch Me If You Can,” photo by Kat Dollarhide

Catch Me If You Can at Tacoma Musical Playhouse is simply a lot of fun, from the opening song, “Live in Living Color” to wonderfully surprising twists at the end. Based on the film of the same title starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks, this musical romp tells the tale of true-life con artist Frank Abagnale Jr. (Jake Atwood), who successfully conned people out of millions of dollars while getting away with pretending to be an airline pilot, a doctor and a prosecuting attorney, all before his 20^th birthday.

Atwood, a Playhouse favorite from musicals such as Footloose and The Addams Family, plays Abagnale as a 1960s playboy in the Frank Sinatra-Dean Martin mold. He is slick, smooth, expressive in his movement, and exudes an air of supreme confidence. Plus, he can sing and dance like nobody’s business.

Abagnale’s cons are so transparent (probably because they had to be simplified for the play) that it’s amazing anyone fell for them; yet in real life they did, over and over. And why did he do it? For fun, for riches, for women, and mostly to please his father, Frank Sr. (Jonathan Bill, also of Addams Family fame), who was himself a failed con man and a cad in an unhappy marriage to a woman he met in France while serving in the war. Early in the play, Frank Jr. catches his mother in an affair with his father’s best friend, and shortly after that his parents get divorced, and Frank Jr. runs away to begin his life of crime.

The play is kept simple and lighthearted throughout the first act with catchy show tunes like “The Pinstripes Are All They See,” a duet with Frank Jr. and Sr. in which the father explains to the son how women are attracted to a uniform; i.e., how appearances are all that matter. (The title comes from the ludicrous but funny notion that the Yankees are a winning team because of their pinstripe uniforms.)

Meanwhile, FBI Agent Carl Hanratty (John Miller) is hot on Frank’s trail, pursuing him as obsessively as Javert after Valjean.

In the second act, the story and the characters become much deeper and more layered, beginning when father and son meet in a bar and air their differences, a scene with a great duet on the song, “Little Boy Be a Man.”

It’s tempting to say that Atwood carries the show on his shoulders with his great stage presence and exuberance, but that would be to ignore other outstanding performances by the likes of Miller as Hanratty, who is like a slightly less frenetic John Belushi on a mission from God. Claire Barton is down-to-earth and lovely as Frank’s fiancée, Brenda. Her solo ballad “Fly, Fly Away” is show-stopping and heartbreaking. Bill underplays the senior Abagnale with heart, and he sings with mellow resonance. He might be a terrible father and husband, but audiences can’t help but like him. Michele Greenwood Bettinger is terrifically funny as Brenda’s mother. Three other actors who stand out wonderfully in supporting roles are Josh Anderman, Nicholas Bray and Cameron Waters as the trio of Hanratty’s underling FBI agents. And I can’t overlook the marvelous chorus of leggy showgirls in costumes by Jocelyne Fowler. I wish I could name them all; they are that good.

The story is resolved with more than one surprise ending and none of the feel-good ballyhoo expected of a stage musical. It is a satisfactory and believable ending, as it should since it is a true story.

The set by Blake York is a stunning ‘60s modernist, art nouveau-inspired airport lounge in sparkling silver with purple and blue lighting by lighting master John Chenault.

Catch Me If You Can, 7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, 2 p.m., through April 29, Tacoma Musical Playhouse at The Narrows Theatre, 7116 Sixth Ave., Tacoma, $22-$31,

253-565-6867, http://www.tmp.org

A Condo to Kill For

Tacoma Little Theatre and The Social Bar and Grill present the murder mystery dinner theater A Condo to Kill For at directed by Karen Christensen with local actors Stacie Hart, George McClure, Brynne Geiszler, Kerry Bringman, Laurice Roberts, and Jennifer Niehaus-Rivers.

Dinner includes: Appetizer, Salad, Main Entrée (Meat, Chicken, Vegetarian/Gluten Free) & Dessert.  Coffee, Tea, Water and Soda are included, and alcohol is available for purchase at the bar or from your server.

A Condo to Kill runs May 17-20.  Thursday-Saturday performances will begin at 7:30pm, and the Sunday performance will begin at 3:00pm.

The Social Bar and Grill, 1715 Dock Street, Tacoma, WA.  RESERVATIONS ARE REQUIRED.

Tickets are $50.00 per person (includes dinner and show) and may be purchased online at www.tacomalittletheatre.com, or by calling our Box Office at (253) 272-2281.  

Mighty Miniatures and Modern Jewels in Spring Popup at Minka

Tacoma artist and arts promoter Lisa Kinoshita just sent me this announcement. It's a one-day-only showing, so mark your calendar and plan to get to Minka.

It's true: the best (and most irresistibly peculiar) things come in small packages! Tacoma-based artist Devon Urquhart makes fabulous, miniature paintings and dioramas smaller than a slice of bread but action packed. Meet the artist at MINKA on April 28, 2-5:30, and enter her tiny universe of laid-back, beer drinking locusts, astronauts tethered to ovaries, and more! You might even go home with a ceramic Boob Cup...

Designer Regina Chang sells her jewels from Hong Kong to Seattle to L.A., and on April 28, 2-5:30 she'll be at MINKA! Please join us and meet the artist - well-known for her juicy-colored natural stones set off with beautiful hammered metals! You know the drill - simple top, plain neckline to show off those amazing necklaces.

Also showing on 4/28: new prints by San Antonio artist, Guy Hundere, colorful abstracts based on algorithms that appear to mirror the natural world.

MINKA is located at 821 Pacific Ave. in Tacoma's Theater District. Hours: Friday 12-5, Saturday 11-5 and by appointment. STARTING IN MAY, we will also be open Thursdays 12-5. Phone: 253.961.5220. www.minkatacoma.com. Also on April 28, meet Paula Shields, MINKA's new co-owner with Lisa Kinoshita. New art, furnishings and collectibles are arriving weekly! MINKA is Japanese for, "house of the people".

Pajama Game comes to Centerstage!

By Alec Clayton

Published in the Weekly Volcano, April 13, 2018

Reheasal photo, left to right: Sharon Armstrong, Timothy Duval, Caiti Burke, Sam Barker, Lia Lee, Rico Lastrapes, Ashley Roy, Colin Madison, Cassie Fastabend, and Tyler Dobies. Photo by Monique Preston.

The Pajama Game has a long and storied history, beginning with its beginning on Broadway in 1954 featuring the choreography of the great Bob Fosse, with Shirley McClain as an unnamed dancer, and through two Broadway revivals and a film. to America. The Pajama Game won the Tony Award for Best Musical, and the 2006 revival copped a grand total of nine Tony Awards. And now it is coming to Centerstage! In Federal Way.

With book by George Abbott and Richard Bissell and music and lyrics by Jerry Ross and Richard Adler, the musical is based on Bissell’s novel about workers at the Sleep-Tite Pajama Factory revolting against harsh conditions when they’re pushed to work faster and faster. They threaten to go on strike and ask for raises of seven-and-a-half cents an hour. Naturally, a love story is thrown into the mix when Sid, the factory superintendent, falls in love with Babe, head of the factory grievance committee, and Prez, the union leader and a married man, has the hots for Gladys, who is dating Vernon Hines, a factory worker who is wracked with jealousy. Sid is played by Eric Dobson; Babe by Taylor Davis, recent director of Return to the Forbidden Planet at Centerstage! Prez is played by Sam Barker, Gladys by Ashley Koon, and Vernon Hines by Colin Madison, Puget Sound area resident and Casting Director at StageRight Theatre in Seattle.

There are fireworks galore, all played out with music and dance with musical theater standards from the 1950s such as “Steam Heat” and “Hernando’s Hideaway.”

“I am really excited by the fabulously diverse cast — some good age range, great racial diversity, and a strong talent pool,” says director Trista Duval. “We have some return actors from this season, but also a few new ones. One of my fave new ones is Gary Taylor, who did film and TV back when that was huge in Seattle. He was in “Northern Exposure” for a 10-or-12-episode arc, and in the film Homeward Bound, which was a formative childhood film for about half the cast, so everyone a bit lost it at that.”

Duval joined Centerstage as the artistic director this past summer after the retirement of Alan Bryce. She has several Centerstage! shows under her belt and says she is honored to be able to continue to build its legacy. She has performed up and down the East Coast, in Texas, and now in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, where she first began to grow her experience as an arts team builder and director. She is “married to a stellar guy and has two gorgeous boys who think they own this theatre.” Duval is familiar to South Sound audiences from her performance as the Good Fairy in the panto Little Red Riding Hood and as the Lady of the Lake in Tacoma Musical Playhouse’s Spamalot.

“I became ill shortly after marrying nine years ago and had to take nearly four years off from the theatre world, then complications with having my kids added another three. So during that time I taught voice and worked with a nonprofit developing their arts programs. Then I began taking directing jobs in the area. When I got back into acting, Centerstage! was my first stop,” Duval says. 

The large cast in The Pajama Game includes a group of high school interns from several Federal Way schools. Choreography is by Ashley Roy. Duval says Roy “will be heavily influenced by Fosse but will be bringing her own stuff.”  Music direction by John Lehrack, owner of Dorothy's Piano Bar in Seattle. And the design team, Duval says, “is a great group of awesomeness, which gives it a really fun colorful look and style.” 

Pajama Game, 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, May 18 through June 3, plus 2 p.m. Saturday matinees beginning May 26, $12-$29, Centerstage at Knutzen Family Theatre, 3200 SW Dash Point Road, Federal Way, 253-565-6867, http://www.tmp.org

Katlyn Hubner’s #SEXUNTOLD

Disturbing and provocative art at 950 Gallery

by Alec Clayton

Published in the Weekly Volcano, April 12, 2018

 “Faith” painting by Katlyn Hubner, courtesy 950 Gallery

It was just this past December that I reviewed Katlyn Hubner’s paintings at Feast Art Center. In that review I made the audacious statement, “. . . might be the best figure paintings I have ever seen outside a major museum.” And now she’s showing in Tacoma again, this time at 950 Gallery, which used to be called Spaceworks Gallery. Her latest outing is called #SEXUNTOLD (hashtag and call-caps part of the title). It is an investigation into how men view sex interpreted from a woman’s point of view. It is definitely an adult-only art exhibition, with male and female nudity and depictions of sexual situations. This show is provocative and might be disturbing to some viewers — not because of the sexual content (it is not in any way pornographic), but because the images are harsh and uncompromising.

Hubner blends distortion and abstraction with realism. She puts her models in uncomfortable poses and views them from strange points of view, and paints extreme closeups and pictures of bodies at harsh angles. You might say they are all teeth and elbows, sweat and strain. The colors are electric, with deep blues and greens, fiery reds, purples, sickly skin tones, soft and delicate modeling adjacent to or blending into the kind of heavy bushstrokes associated with Abstract Expressionism.

The only painter I can think of who has ever done anything similar is Francis Bacon. That might give readers an inkling of what they’re in for. This show is not for the squeamish.

And it’s not just painting. Hubner interviewed men, asking questions about sexism, and their responses are presented as written text and film projection including film of one man reciting poems he wrote in answer to Hubner’s questions.

Among the more haunting images is “Trouble Shooting,” a closeup of a hand gripping a neck and “Self 101” a seated naked woman with splashes and drips of paint obscuring her face, breast and pubic area as a violet kind of censorship.

One of the most disturbing (and most Baconesque) is “Faith,” an extreme closeup of a screaming face with a monstrous open mouth, the head covered in clear plastic painted with expressionistic slashes of white paint.

There are also two unfinished paintings that demonstrate the artist’s method of working. In these, the background appears almost finished but the figure includes blue-green outlines of areas that will be light and shadow.

Hubner works from photographs she takes herself from models of her choosing. There are six such photographs in the show, all with the same range of electric colors we see in the paintings.

Between the paintings, the texts, the films and photos, there is a lot to see. I find the written work and the filmed responses to her questions mildly interesting. I find the paintings mesmerizing and marvelous.

#SEXUNTOLD, 1-5 p.m. Thursdays, 1-9 p.m. Third Thursday, and by appointment, through April 19, 950 Gallery, 950 Pacific Ave. (Entrance on 11th St.),
Tacoma,

Review: Peter and the Starcatcher

by Alec Clayton  

Published in The News Tribune, April 6, 2018

(L to R)  KYLE SINCLAIR (Black Stache), CHAP WOLFF (Smee) and the Ensemble Cast from the Lakewood Playhouse Production of "PETER & THE STARCATCHER" - photo by Tim Johnson

The Ensemble Cast of the Lakewood Playhouse Production of "PETER & THE STARCATCHER" - photo by Tim Johnson

Lakewood Playhouse’s South Sound premiere of “Peter and the Starcatcher” is two-and-a-half hours of buffoonery with moments of tenderness that will remind you of every comedy bit you’ve ever seen, from Willie Wonka to Monty Python and Carol Burnett, to “The Rocky Horror Show” and “Pirates of Penzance” – the latter because there are pirates galore in the show, and because of director John Munn’s unique stylings recently seen in Lakewood Playhouse’s production of “Penzance.” This one is not a musical, but there is a lot of singing in it and, if not dancing, at least a lot of choreographed movement, particularly a lot of hilarious overly histrionic posing in freeze-frame.

The one drawback to this ambitious undertaking is the story itself. It is the story of Peter Pan before he became Peter Pan and Captain Hook before he lost his hand. Based on the novel by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson and adapted for the stage by Rick Elice, the story is a hodgepodge of loosely connected skits with no dramatic arc until the bare outline of a story appears in the second act. It starts out fall-on-the-floor funny but begins to drag in the second act. Some cuts would have helped, but copyright laws prevent that.

What the story lacks in cohesion is compensated for by outstanding acting on the part of the 13-member ensemble cast. It is a true ensemble, not a few leads backed up by an ensemble. Nevertheless, there are actors who stand out, such as Kyle Sinclair as the sinister Black Stache. Theatergoers will remember Sinclair for his standout role in “Avenue Q.” Sinclair plays this epitome of all b-movie bad guys with grand gestures and comic timing worthy of the greatest of the old silent-movie stars. Emily Cohen who plays the unnamed Boy (cq) who eventually becomes Peter Pan as a sweet, unaffected, and brave young man. Cohen is also the show’s fight choreographer. Kudos also to W. Scott Pinkston, who is over-the-top silly as the lovesick Alf, in love with the delightful Martin Larson, in drag throughout as Mrs. Bumbrake. And to Tony L. Williams (also an “Avenue Q” alum) as the gruff and growly pirate Bill Slank and later as the dumber than dumb Hawking Clam.

Scenic designer Blake York does his usual primo job of designing a kind of rundown waterfront scene that looks deceptively tacked together with scrap lumber but is strong and serviceable. Lighting by Jacob Viramontes and Joy Ghigleri brilliantly enhance the fast-moving action.

Munn and his crew deserve maximum credit for pulling this mish-mosh together and somehow making it work.

WHEN: 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, through April 22

WHERE: Lakewood Playhouse, 5729 Lakewood Towne Center Blvd., Lakewood TICKETS: $20-$26

INFORMATION: (253) 588-0042, https://www.lakewoodplayhouse.org/ 

Priscilla Dobler’s ‘La Sala’ at Feast Art Center

by Alec Clayton

Published in the Weekly Volcano, April 5, 2018

 installation shot of Priscilla Dobler’s La Sala, photo by Gabi Clayton

La Sala is Spanish for “living room,” and Priscilla Dobler’s installation by that name at Feast Art Center is a conceptual environment that questions how a person’s living room affects their life — turning on its head the concept that we affect the spaces in which we live. After all, we choose the furnishings, the colors, and what goes on the walls of our living rooms. But we live in those rooms day in and day out, so our living rooms affect us as well as we affect them. To some people this might be nothing more than a mind game, but in the hands of an artist it can be intellectually stimulating and beautiful.

This installation investigates how architectural spaces represent gender roles and cultural structures. In it, Dobler has constructed a room with a couch, a chair, tables, and artwork hanging on the walls, all built with wood frames upon which she weaves layers of colorful thread. The furniture is a boxy kind of reductive sculpture. The “paintings” on the wall are simple scrims of overlapping lines of thread that hang a foot or two from the walls. Three of them are traditional rectangular frames, and two are oddly shaped.

The most interesting thing about the paintings and the furniture is that the colors change depending on your point of view, and changes of position can create an effect similar to moiré patterns as you move about the space. For example, one piece of furniture has a web of blue threads with a few inches beneath it a web of red threads. Depending on the viewer’s position in the room, it looks blue, or it might look red, or the red and blue threads might blend together to make purple. Furthermore, since everything is see-through, viewers can see patterns upon patterns upon patterns as they move about.

Added to all this, there is a video projection through one of the “paintings” onto the back wall, with local people sitting in their own living rooms and talking about their perceptions of their environment. Over the past few months, Dobler has been interviewing individuals in Tacoma about their perceptions of how their identity has been shaped based on the political and social structure of identity in society and in private/public spaces. Apparently the film is an ongoing project, because there is an announcement on the gallery wall asking for volunteers to be filmed. Similar versions of the installation have been presented in galleries in Seattle, and others are planned for the near future.

Dobler’s La Sala is a quiet and unobtrusive installation that demands attention and thought. If you enter the gallery expecting to be delighted or entertained, you might be disappointed. But if you go in willing to look and listen with an open mind, your mind just might be expanded.

La Sala, installation by Priscilla Dobler, noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday, and by appointment, through April 14, Feast Arts Center, 1402 S. 11th St., Tacoma, www.feastarts.com